He shows her how to have fun, sweeping her off her feet and even convincing her to climb into a treehouse with him - something she’d never do alone. She is mysterious, bringing her sense of refinement into his world: crystal and china in a plein air setting. The golden warmth of summer promises that between them, anything is possible.

Right now, I make cake. I'm not sure it's what I'll be doing forever, but I don't have to be sure. That's the beautiful thing. And when I tear my eyes away from squinting into the distant horizon, hoping to determine the exact place this will all end up... that's when I actually start moving forward. Looking back over the last year, I can see progress that felt at the time almost indiscernible or even nonexistent. In that spirit, here are a few things I learned in 2016 (and am still learning). Because that too, is a process.

This is where I first started thinking about small custom desserts as being a vehicle for conveying the narrative of an event. A big single cake just wouldn't have fit the story. The little vignettes, the mystery, the personal focus - no, these needed to be singles. Dark but warm. Food first for eyes, then hands, then mouth.

Yesterday I turned the page on year 25. Naturally, I'm looking back and thinking about what this year held; what I did; what it all meant. My relationship to this work has been a little like friendship and a lot like falling in love.

This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal Sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls."

If it were up to me, every wedding would just be a very, very special dinner party.... Cake tasting is a process which just begins to crack open that Pandora's box to my clients. We get to sit down, eat cake together (well, you, not me...) and discuss ideas. It's one step left of heaven.

The stage is set with flickering candles and the wooden bas relief of the Last Supper peers down behind the cake table. We can't move it, and it's ok. Mostly I know how I want people to feel, like I do, part of something bigger than all of us and so marvelous.

"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap.... It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.... You’ve just gotta fight your way through."